XMLSpy XML Editor

Altova XMLSpy is the world's best selling XML editor for modeling, editing, transforming, and debugging XML and related technologies.

XMLSpy gives developers the tools they need to build the most sophisticated applications with its graphical schema designer, code generation, file converters, debuggers, and profilers for working with XSD, XSLT, XQuery, XBRL, JSON, and more.

XMLSpy is powered by RaptorXML® for lightning-fast validation and processing. RaptorXML is also available as a cross-platform server product to power your applications.

XMLSpy Highlights

Developers need an XML editor that adds value beyond bracket matching and basic validation checking. Complementing the comprehensive feature set below, XMLSpy offers the patented SmartFix error correction, a revolutionary process that not only finds XML validation errors but also enumerates the possible corrections for fixing them, which you can choose to implement with one click. That's right - XMLSpy will make the corrections automatically, based on your selection.

XML Editor

Text and Graphical Editing Views

The XMLSpy XML editor abstracts away the complexity of working with XML and related technologies through its intuitive user interface and rich variety of XML editing views and options. Whether you prefer to develop in a text-based or graphical XML viewer, XMLSpy provides intelligent XML editing guidance and entry-helpers as you type, and troubleshooting is fast and easy with the industry's most standards-conformant XML validator.

As you work, the XML editor provides Smart Fix validation, a patented process that not only finds XML validation errors but also enumerates the possible corrections for fixing them, which you can choose to implement with one click. That's right - XMLSpy will make the corrections automatically, based on your selection.

XML Schema Editor

The graphical XML Schema editor in XMLSpy allows you to create schemas in a visual, drag-and-drop manner, so you can focus on the semantics of your schema while leaving the syntactical details of the XML Schema language to XMLSpy. In addition to rich XML Schema 1.0 and 1.1 editing and validation, the following XSD tools are provided:

XSL and XSLT Tools

XSLT Editor

XMLSpy provides complete support for XSL and XSLT development in its XSLT editor with context-sensitive entry helpers, an XSL outline window, and more.

For transformation, seamless integration with installed RaptorXML Servers delivers hyper-performance functionality coupled with strict conformance to W3C standards, including XSLT, XPath, and XQuery versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.1. This allows you to take advantage of super-fast transformations during development and testing, all directly inside XMLSpy.

XSLT Debugger and Profiler

Testing and perfecting XSLT stylesheets can be a complicated, time-consuming process. With the XMLSpy XSLT debugger, you can step through and debug even the most intricate stylesheets quickly and easily. Support for XSLT 1.0, XSLT 2.0, and XSLT 3.0 is provided, and you can even debug stylesheets that contain program code in Java, C#, JavaScript, or VBScript.

The XMLSpy XSLT profiler is an invaluable tool for optimizing the performance of your XSLT code. Based on the information revealed by the XSLT profiler, you can immediately see which parts of your XSLT code are taking the most time to process and adjust them accordingly to fully optimize your XSLT stylesheets.

XSL Speed Optimizer

The XSLT profiler delivers important information for expert XSLT developers, but if you want to speed up XSLT execution time without manually changing your XSLT and XPath code, try the XSL Speed Optimizer.

The XMLSpy XSL Speed Optimizer is a revolutionary approach to speeding up XSLT transformations, providing tremendous increases in throughput with no manual analysis required to determine exactly which XSLT or XPath expressions are causing bottlenecks.

XSLT and XQuery Back-mapping

Because XSLT and XQuery documents are frequently long and complex, it can be difficult to identify the source of unintended output. For targeted debugging, back-mapping makes it easy to immediately correspond output elements to source nodes and instructions.

With back-mapping enabled, XSLT transformations and XQuery executions are carried out so that the result document can be mapped back on to the originating XSLT+XML or XQuery+XML documents. When you click on a node in the result document, the XSLT instruction and the XML source data that generated that particular result node will be highlighted.

Back-mapping in XMLSpy is revolutionary in two ways. First, it saves developers considerable time in debugging, refining, and perfecting their code as well as understanding inherited code written by other team members. Second, XMLSpy does not make any changes or add additional code to the output document in order to achieve back-mapping.

XPath and XQuery Tools

XPath/XQuery Windows

The XPath and XQuery window in XMLSpy makes it easy to build and test your XPath/XQuery expressions as you compose them with built-in Builder and Evaluator windows. Helpful functionality to speed development is provided through:

XQuery Editor

For working with large XQuery documents, the XML editor provides native support for XQuery 1.0 and XQuery 3.1 with all the intelligent editing functionality you need to edit XQuery documents quickly and easily. Support for schema-awareness in the XQuery editor allows you to harness the full power of XQuery through mechanisms for error isolation, simplified debugging, and enhanced code performance.

XPath/XQuery Debugger

The powerful XPath and XQuery window also includes a powerful Debugger for testing, troubleshooting, and perfecting your XPath/XQuery to save time and reduce frustration.

The debugger lets you go step-by-step through the evaluation of your XPath or XQuery expression. Each click shows you the results for the corresponding step of the evaluation, and you can step into, step out, and step over evaluation steps using helpful buttons in the debugger toolbar.

An advanced XQuery Profiler is also provided, helping you analyze and optimize your XQuery code performance.

The results pane lets you preview the results of the changes, and clicking on a result in the preview pane highlights the affected node in your instance document. Then, you can execute the updates with one click, either in the current file or across all open files, a folder, or an entire XMLSpy project. This functionality is unique to XMLSpy.

Check out the XQuery Update Facility Editor in action

JSON and JSON Schema Editors

JSON Editor

The JSON editor in XMLSpy allows you to view and edit JSON and JSON5 files using the same intuitive Text and Grid Views available for XML editing, with useful editing guides and entry helpers. The JSON editor provides:

Support for JSON and JSON5

Context sensitive entry-helpers and other intelligent editing tools

JSON syntax checking

Validation based on JSON Schema

JSON <=> XML conversion

JSON Schema Editor

Just as XMLSpy pioneered the first graphical XML Schema editor, it now also includes the first enterprise-grade, graphical JSON Schema editor to greatly speed schema generation, development, and validation for developers working with JSON.

JSON Schema View will be immediately familiar to XMLSpy customers who’ve used XML Schema View and are now learning to design JSON Schemas, while at the same time being easy to comprehend for new users. Use the JSON Schema editor for:

Drag-and-drop JSON Schema editing & validation

XML Schema <=> JSON Schema conversion

Generation of JSON instance files from JSON Schema

JSON Schema documentation generation

XML Diff / Merge

XMLSpy includes includes a visual XML compare utility that allows developers to easily compare XML and merge documents and directories in an intelligent, XML-aware manner. For file comparisons, 2- and 3-way diff/merge are supported.

The XML-aware diff/merge options are completely customizable. For example, you can specify if entities should be resolved, if namespace prefixes, whitespace, CDATA, processing instructions, comments, or the ordering of attributes/child elements should be ignored or not, and how to visualize differences. In addition, you can merge the textual differences and differences in XML between files as you are comparing them.

XBRL Tools

Altova provides comprehensive support for end-to-end XBRL development and report generation, from taxonomy editing in XMLSpy, to high-performance validation on RaptorXML Server, to data mapping and analysis in MapForce, to multi-channel report generation StyleVision.

XBRL Taxonomy Editor

By organizing different components on easy-to-filter tabs and providing informative icons, mouseover messages, detail windows, and context-sensitive entry helpers, the XMLSpy XBRL taxonomy editor makes it easy to both view and understand existing taxonomies, and create new ones by way of extending industry-standard taxonomies.

It even includes the handy XBRL Taxonomy Wizard to give you a head start when extending or creating a new XBRL taxonomy.

WSDL & SOAP Tools

Graphical WSDL Editor

WSDL syntax can be complex, and writing the code by hand in a text-only editor is often difficult and confusing. XMLSpy’s unique graphical approach to WSDL design simplifies WSDL development by allowing you to build your WSDL visually, with drag-and-drop functionality and full validation and editing guidance. Complete WSDL code is generated behind the scenes based on your graphical design, and you can view and edit the code in Text View at any time.

Auto-generation of comprehensive WSDL documentation is also supported.

SOAP Client & SOAP Debugger

XMLSpy includes full SOAP 1.2 and 1.1 capabilities including a SOAP client for interpreting WSDL documents, creating SOAP requests, submitting them to a Web service, and viewing the SOAP response.

The XMLSpy SOAP Debugger acts as a proxy between a Web services client and server, allowing you to inspect WSDL 1.1/2.0 files, single-step through Web services transactions sent over HTTP or HTTPS, inspect every request and response XML document, set breakpoints on SOAP functions and even define conditional breakpoints that trigger when a certain request or response contains selected data that is specified by means of an XPath query.

In this way, the SOAP Debugger helps you identify and fix errors quickly and easily.

Database Integration

Powerful relational database integration in XMLSpy helps reduce interoperability challenges by allowing you to easily query SQL databases and convert back and forth between databases and XML files.

XMLSpy interacts with the most popular relational databases in their native interface language, including:

“We have been using Altova XMLSpy for more than four years for our XSLT/XQuery/schema development... As a XSLT developer, I use XMLSpy for my XSLT development and for ALL the debugging of my code. In a nutshell, XMLSpy is the best.”

Manoj Pillai,Sr. Developer, Shared Services Group, Inc.

“Altova's XMLSpy is easily the fastest XML Editor I've ever seen. A free 30-day trial is available on their Web site; the only issue is that when the 30 days are up, you're going to want to buy it.”